


The Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

by GretchenSinister



Series: A Draught of Light and Bonus Material [3]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, fictional scholarship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: The Great Library hosts an exhibition on anonymous poetry from the first years of the Dimming.
Relationships: Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Series: A Draught of Light and Bonus Material [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686004
Kudos: 3
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics





	1. Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 8/21/2013.
> 
> This is bonus material for the fic A Draught of Light. It can be considered canonical with the main fic.

“Your name is the word for joy in the language I learned as a child.

Your name is the word for sorrow in the language I learned as a man.”

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600

Source: The Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

_In the years now acknowledged to be the first of the time period known as the Dimming, anonymous poetry proliferated both in the City of the Moon and throughout the Lunar Kingdom. At first, the short poems appeared painted on the walls of buildings. Later, the trend grew and contests were held (few prizes were ever claimed, for obvious reasons). Books full of poems, all in different handwriting, would be found in printers’ shops when workers arrived in the morning, enclosed with enough money to produce small editions._

_For this exhibition, we have selected several of these brief, anonymous Dimming poems. We aim to present them as they would have originally been read, whether on walls or in tiny, cheaply-printed books. The location in which the poems originally appeared will be noted on the informational cards next to each exhibit._

_We hope you will enjoy this visit to the Royal Gallery at the Great Library and find new appreciation for the mysterious literary period often subsumed by the larger cultural events that took place during the same era._


	2. I tell you

> “I tell you I envy the night
> 
> The darkness casually embracing the little lights of the stars
> 
> But, Love, I would never wish you to be dimmer than the sun.”

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600, The Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection


	3. I would rather

> “I would rather be burned by your touch
> 
> Than healed by another’s.
> 
> I would rather be burned by your touch
> 
> Than anything.
> 
> Singe me with your fingertips
> 
> Scorch me with your tongue
> 
> I swear those wounds will cause less pain
> 
> Than those immaterial ones I receive from your eyes alone.”

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600, Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

_A particular curiosity, this poem was mailed to the palace at the height of the Anonymous Era. Due to such a public receipt, it became one of the most well-known poems in the style. Printers were flooded with requests for copies, and the text often served as the subject for embroidery, as demonstrated by the clothes, purses, pillows, samplers, and other decorative arts displayed in the case to the left._

_The original text is presented in the case to the right under a velvet cloth. Please replace the cloth after reading to prevent degradation of the ink._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> datenshi-no-hime reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> I can see Pitch saying this to Sandy, maybe in a love letter, or as a poem, written down but never meant to be seen by the one it was written for.


	4. I have heard

> “I have heard no one may walk without his shadow.
> 
> I have heard many lies.
> 
> I face east as the sun sets and I see a shape like yours before me.
> 
> I face east and try to say, "Soon my shadow will return.”
> 
> I cannot speak the one lie I want to hear."

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600, Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

_Many poems, such as this one found in the City of the Moon, draw on the iconography of the light adepts when describing scenes of lost love (note the inability of the speaker to lie). However, the longing of the speaker to reunite with a shadow, conventional in many anonymous era poems, makes it extremely unlikely that the unknown author was a light adept._


	5. There is a map

> “There is a map on your back
> 
> Where all roads lead away from me.
> 
> I know this all too well.
> 
> I traced every one with both my hands
> 
> (The right was joy and the left was despair)
> 
> The night before you finished following them.”

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600, Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

_Many scholars agree that the map metaphor refers to veins, suggesting sickly pale skin on the part of the beloved. The beloved can be assumed to have finished following the roads away from their lover by dying of some illness. Most scholars also assert that this poem, known as the “Map Poem” for its opening image, was the anonymous author’s only work, as it appears to refer to a specific incident while most other Anonymous Era poems speak of love and loss more generally._


	6. I renounced

> “I renounced the sun and spoke truth
> 
> I renounced the moon and spoke truth
> 
> I was not asked to renounce you
> 
> My brightest light.
> 
> I did not use my new skill in lying.”

–Anonymous, circa L.Y. 1600, Great Library, Charlo Hanvers Poetry Collection

_In contrast to the Anonymous Era poems that seem to draw from light adept iconography, some, like this one, have been controversially interpreted as works that employ shadow adept positions for artistic effect. Late New Animism authors especially used these interpretations to argue that the study of Anonymous Era poems was ideologically inappropriate. However, the loyalty to the lover as light in this poem seems to offer compelling evidence that the speaker was not envisioned by the author as a shadow adept._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> marypsue said: wow NO who told you this was okay :lies on floor:


End file.
